"The 7-Second Trader" Is Killing the "Faith" in Meme Coins
- Core Viewpoint: The article reveals how high-frequency "7-second" traders, represented by Cented, are harvesting profits from followers in the meme coin market by bundling multiple wallets, sniping new coins, and quickly exiting. This model is seen as a "cancer for meme coins" and has sparked community reflection on returning to classical values like long-term holding and community building.
- Key Elements:
- Cented executed over 300,000 trades in 357 days, with a median holding time of just 7 seconds, and has realized profits exceeding $10 million. Their profit model relies on high-frequency trading rather than long-term holding.
- Their trading strategy typically involves buying new coins through bundled wallets when the market cap is only a few thousand dollars and rapidly selling when it reaches around $100,000. Profits come from the "cognitive tax" paid by followers.
- Simulated copy-trading tests showed that following Cented with a 10-second delay and selling after 10 minutes resulted in a -21.3% return, proving it's difficult for ordinary users to profit by copying such traders.
- Using Murad, who achieved massive returns by holding $SPX long-term, as a contrast, the article points out that the market needs to promote long-term conviction over short-term hype to change trading culture.
- Reflective voices are emerging in the community, calling for meme coin culture to return to its classical spirit of focusing on community building, long-term holding, and bringing joy, rather than pure speculative harvesting.
Meme coin players in the Chinese and English-speaking communities are currently most active on BSC and SOL, respectively. However, when it comes to "criticism," players from both spheres have "converged" on a common target.
The Chinese community criticizes figures like "Cow" and "A Feng," while the recent target of unanimous condemnation in the English-speaking world is Cented.
The "7-Second" Trader
According to data from cielo.finance, Cented's historical realized profits have exceeded $10 million.
His realized profits over the past 30 days were approximately $727,000, and about $190,000 over the past 7 days.
This "money-printing" level of profitability corresponds to a total of 308,666 trades over 357 days, a win rate of 62.3%, and a median holding time of just 7 seconds.
None of his $10 million in profits came from "big wins" by diamond hands. His largest single profit, from $gork, netted only about $90,000. In the ranking of profitable tokens below, much of his earnings came from trading coins we might never have even heard of.
These tokens, as per many negative views on meme coins, might have a lifecycle from birth to death shorter than an hour, existing solely to be gambled on. Without "traders" like Cented who have copy-trading volume, these coins might not even be seen by real people through monitoring bots among the tens of thousands of new tokens launched daily.
On average, Cented executes 845 trades per day, earning about $33 per trade, resulting in daily income of roughly $28,000 and monthly income of about $850,000. This frequency means a trade approximately every 1.5 minutes throughout the day. The time spent executing these trades could fill all 24 hours, leaving no time for eating, sleeping, or using the bathroom.
"Copy-trading harvesters" like Cented are long accustomed to "bundled" purchases via a main wallet and dozens or even hundreds of dispersed small wallets when a token's market cap is just a few thousand dollars, then exiting when the market cap reaches $100,000 or even lower.
Their profits are a "cognitive tax" levied on current meme coin players who believe "you can only make money by playing new tokens intraday." Platforms (pump.fun/Axiom/gmgn) need them, need them to promote and establish the mythical narrative in tweets or livestreams of "making big money by just sitting with good tools." In reality, multi-wallet bundling tools are already quite sophisticated on platforms like Axiom. These KOLs can easily perform operations, reinforce their personas with each bundle, and gain additional profits from transaction terminal rebates.
Due to extremely short holding times and high trading frequency, Cented's address has even been labeled as an MEV bot.
Furthermore, Cented has launched 1,000 tokens, with only 30 successfully "graduating."
Three days ago, he launched a token called $Ichi, posted the contract address (CA), but ultimately his public address held it for only 1 hour, profiting about $2,800.
"The World Has Suffered Long Under Tyranny"
What can we learn from "7-second" traders like Cented?
cookin.fun simulated trades from numerous KOLs, using a 10-second real delay for copy-trading and selling 10 minutes later, to test if one could actually profit by copying KOLs. The test result for copying Cented was a -21.3% return.
The get-rich-quick story of Trump's token launch completely plunged the meme coin market into the "sit-and-wait myth" — the belief that as long as you sit in front of the computer for over 10 hours a day, frantically operating those trading terminals, you'll eventually catch the a7, a8 myth that makes you rich in the blink of an eye.
This myth only turns more people into fodder for "traders" like Cented to harvest via copy-trading.
We cannot learn anything from their investment philosophy. The only thing seemingly learnable is bundling, sniping, converting others' losses into our own profits. When everyone pursues extreme speed in entry/exit, the entire market becomes like a battle royale game where everyone has maxed-out gear, making it increasingly difficult to attract new players.
Therefore, many voices are emerging, arguing that players like Cented have become "the cancer of meme coins."
But at the same time, Murad, once famous for "Believe in something," whose portfolio peaked at over $50 million, is now worth only about $9.38 million.
The token that made Murad legendary, $SPX, experienced a year-long dormancy before skyrocketing from under $8 million to a $1 billion market cap. During that year, it also endured three drawdowns exceeding 80%. The pain endured by those who held until the end is known only to themselves.
Faith needs to be tested; this is true for SPX, and even more so for Bitcoin. It is precisely these stories of "belief being rewarded" that have driven the development of cryptocurrency to this day.
Yet these hard-won belief miracles, which created "self-fulfilling prophecy myths" for cryptocurrency, have ultimately become fodder for deplorable behaviors like celebrity token launches and copy-trading harvests, which is lamentable.
In the English-speaking community, more and more players are beginning to realize this — we need to return to that earlier era. The era when trading meme coins could genuinely bring a smile, when holding long-term wasn't seen as foolish, and when community building and idea propagation persisted despite despairing market performance.
"If platforms like pump.fun, gmgn, axiom, bonk.fun start promoting KOLs like Murad instead of the likes of Cented, people's attitudes towards trading will change. When long-term holding, conviction, and similar trading styles are rewarded, more people will emulate this classical technique."
We are not at a dead end. Sometimes, the path ahead isn't blocked; perhaps we just need to look back at the road we came from.
